Cold Rain (2015)
by RainheartMedia
Summary: A young Eldar is left behind after a vicious battle. He must find some way to derive meaning and salvation from his last few hours of life.


At once, his vision focused on a leaf directly before his face. On that single, perfect, crystalline droplet that coursed down its length. He watched it creep along the gully the stem formed at its center, edging ever closer to the precipice at the edge of the leaf. Before it could reach that edge, Yanai heard the voices behind him. They were looking for him, and he knew he couldn't remain hidden long.

The cold rain continued to fall, all that he felt of it underneath the thick canopy of the subarctic rainforest were fat, heavy droplets. It threatened to wash away the mud and algae Yanai had smeared over his blood-red armor – covering the sigils and heraldry of Saim-Hann, for such brash colors would give him away instantly in this green forest. His jetbike lay crashed. . . goodness he couldn't tell. . . perhaps eight days' travel behind him. He could only hope the rest of his people escaped the maiden world alive. For as the days wore on, Yanai's hopes for his own survival seemed more and more grim. And in the last few days, he had heard voices. Mon-keigh voices, speaking their guttural and simplistic language. But these mon-keigh were even worse, for they had forsaken themselves willingly to the evils of the Warp. The very thought filled Yanai's mind with revulsion, and pure, abject terror.

He touched an amulet around his throat, his gloved fingers sliding over the smooth, carven surface. It was cylindrical, perhaps two inches long, pointed like a pyramid at the base. It was a good luck charm, a relic from the Eldar's ancient past, given to him by a lover many years before to bring protection and guidance. Yanai needed both more than ever now.

He ghosted through the forest now, darting from fern thicket, to fallen log, to lichen-covered boulder, his light footsteps making barely a stir in the forest floor, his pointed ears straining for any sign of his pursuers. The mon-keigh's language was so simple Eldar schoolchildren could learn it in a day, and Yanai comprehended enough to understand that his pursuers knew he was near.

He paused and darted behind a wide, moss-coated tree, pressing his back against the cool, rain-soaked bark. His alabaster-white hair was plastered over his forehead, soaked through with rain and sweat. He closed his eyes, forced himself to calm, lest his panicked breaths give himself away. He knelt, and touched the surface of the maiden world. He paused a moment, trying to attune his mind, to speak with the planet's world-spirit. . . but no, it had died long ago. The barbaric interlopers had murdered it. The thought filled Yanai with a burning, boiling hatred, but this too he was forced to swallow. It was said the mon-keigh did not feel as strongly as the Eldar do. Yanai wasn't sure whether to pity or envy them this fact.

His fist closed, bringing with it more mud and algae from the forest floor, and this he smeared over the parts of his armor that had been washed clean in the rain. Once more the glyph of the Cosmic Serpent was hidden from view. Shame; that was what Yanai felt when he covered the sign of his craftworld. Shame, and deep, gnawing loneliness. He was quite sure they had forgotten him. . . and in truth, he hoped they had. Better they be far away from this place rather than looking for him.

A crack. Yanai's concentration had lapsed. What he thought was the sharp snap of the barbarian's primitive laser-weapons was actually a branch cracking under the weight of a ill-placed foot. Catlike, Yanai slid down from behind the tree, into a narrow gulley, where he ran on all fours as agilely as one of the crystalline spiders that dwelt near his craftworld's infinity circuit. He climbed up a fallen log which rested on the ground at a raised angle, and used this leverage to jump silently into a tree. He climbed up, hand over hand, pushing the wet and dripping branches down below him. There he waited. His ascent up the tree had taken less than four seconds, and had made not a sound.

Then, he saw them. Emerging from the dripping green foliage, two of them came. Mon-keigh, their tattered and filthy uniforms clinging wetly to their bodies, the bird-symbol of the Imperium scratched out on their armor and painted over with the many-pointed star of the Chaos gods. In their hands they clutched weapons, laser pistols or the even more barbaric solid slug throwers, Yanai couldn't tell. It made no difference which, his armor would not stop a determined assault, and his own pistol lay many days travel behind, the ammunition core long since expended. His knife was all that remained to him, and a lot of good it would do him. Stabbing one would only give the other time enough to end his life. He found himself cursing his stupidity for never undergoing Aspect training. But, how was he to know this would happen, his rational brain argued? Better to have lived his life with his family and his crafts and die here, today, than live one of austerity and constant strife, and die many years ago somewhere less beautiful.

These thoughts calmed Yanai's mind, but only for a moment. Once the mon-keigh had moved on below him, an even more terrifying figure emerged from the dense undergrowth behind them. Seven feet tall, armor adorned in rusted metal and elements of faded blue and green. A sigil of a green, many-headed Hydra was painted on its shoulder-pads. This was a Space Marine, but one who had given his body and soul to Chaos. The two humans before him turned and chattered at the Chaos Marine, and Yanai understood enough of what they said to realize they had lost track of him. He couldn't believe his luck that they did not have scanning devices – for he possessed no means with which to deceive them. If they simply looked up, they would see him.

But they did not. They continued on, the two humans and their Marine companion. The large one's footsteps sounded like muffled thunder to Yanai's ears. His heart was pounding. There had been rumors that the Fallen Space Marines were here. Yet another folly of mankind, that they would allow their most powerful warriors to become servants of the dark gods, and now Yanai would pay the price. He began to panic. Even if he died, the spirit stone he wore would be taken by that twisted, corrupted monster. It would be broken on some ancient, horrific altar, and Yanai's soul would be consumed raw by She Who Thirsts. It was the worst fate any Eldar could imagine, and it would be Yanai's. Why? Why had he been forsaken? Were the Eldar gods truly, truly dead?

A rustle in the foliage alerted him. A third mon-keigh emerged from the bushes, following the others. He was panting, holding his side. Wounded, Yanai realized.

Weak.

Suddenly purpose crystallized in his mind. He would not wait in this tree like a frightened animal. This world was his world. These people were his eternal enemy. There was no hope for him now, he would be consumed, mind, body, and soul. The only thing he had left to decide was what he would do with the few breaths he had remaining. Like the droplet moving toward the edge of the leaf, so did Yanai slide his feet to the edge of the branch. He slipped down onto a lower one, and a lower one, making not a sound, moving so softly he did not even dislodge droplets of rainwater from the leaves he passed. He followed the straggler, staying ten feet above him and five feet behind.

The mon-keigh stopped, panting. He looked down and removed his hand from his side, looking at a ragged glove soaked in red blood. He swore. It was his last word.

Yanai fell from the tree above him, twisting catlike in the air, pushing his knife downward. The momentum of his fall aided his strike, which caught the human in the back of the neck, pushing through flesh, nerve, and gristle like a hot blade through water. The momentum of his fall shoved the human down onto the ground on his face, the body falling like a sack of rocks, with a heavy, wet thud. Yanai absorbed the impact with his legs, crouched over his victim like a spider. Red blood pooled around the knife-hilt, pressed tightly against the back of the mon-keigh's neck. The man didn't move. The strike had killed him instantly. He had not even cried out or made a sound.

Yanai pulled the dagger free with a sickening sucking sound, wiping it off on the moss and re-sheathing it at his belt. He searched the man briefly. He bore nothing of use to Yanai save for a crude, rusted dagger and some rancid mon-keigh rations. Not even a primitive firearm could be found on the corpse. He would not live long enough to need rations, but Yanai took the dagger before lifting himself back into the trees.

He trailed the other three for many hours, staying too far behind them to be seen. Only his keen senses kept him aware of their location. Eventually night fell, and Yanai found himself crouching in a tree for several hours without moving. He did not want to approach too closely to the humans, and it became clear they had stopped for the night.

Falling down to the forest floor with barely a whisper, Yanai crept among the ferns, darting between lichen-clothed tree trunks as he made his way closer. Once near, he ascended another tree and hid among the evergreen branches as he peered at their makeshift campsite.

Little more than a stone firepit at the base of a huge tree, one of the smaller mon-keigh sat near the warmth, drying his clothes, while the other held a clip for his laser-weapon in the flames with a long branch, recharging the batteries in a crude but effective manner. The two humans were talking, discussing the whereabouts of their third companion. They concluded he must have stopped to rest and dress his wound, and they would search for him in the morning.

The larger Marine stood nearby, the eye-slits of his helmet glowing purple in the gloom as he peered out away from the camp, into the night-shrouded forest. Yanai had heard these warriors never slept, never rested, and never ceased in their dark pursuits. He knew he couldn't kill that one, but it no longer mattered. Yanai's soul already belonged to She Who Thirsts, and the only thing that mattered now was how his death came, and how many of his enemies shared his fate. Yanai promised himself. . . at least one more.

His chance came when the mon-keigh who had been drying himself stood and moved off into the brush. He was bidden not to move too far by the other, and dismissed with a nonchalant wave of his hand. Yanai followed this man, who moved off about fifty feet from the campsite, climbing up onto a small, moss-covered rock that overlooked a shallow gully. He ruffled with his clothes, and soon the sounds of water could be heard as the man relieved himself.

Yanai worked quickly as he crouched in a branch high above the man. He could not risk a body being found so close to the camp, but nor could he let this chance to kill one of his enemies go to waste.

The man below's mind was elsewhere as he attended to his needs. The forest was dark around him, a few trees gently illuminated by the light from the fire far behind. He was nearly finished, and a good thing too. The forest gave him the creeps.

He felt something drop gently from above. A vine, the coils of which draped over his shoulders and chest. "What in –"

Yanai leapt to the ground from the high branch, the end of the vine noose he had made clutched in his hands. The human uttered a quick gurgle as the vine snapped tight around his neck, before he was lofted high into the canopy with a sickening crunch. Yanai tied the vine to a fallen log, glancing up at the corpse now hung from his neck fifty feet above the forest floor. It gave a twitch, and then was still.

Yanai smiled.

The next morning found him lying in ambush, mud, algae, and leaves covering his body. He had discarded most of his armor, leaving only his boots and chestplate – which held his invaluable spirit stone clutched over his sternum. His legs clad only in the thin, skintight underlayer, he was able to squeeze under the deadfall of logs under which he hid now.

The two remaining mon-keigh had spent the rest of the night in wariness after their companion never returned. They were now quite sure of Yanai's presence, and blamed him for the death of their other compatriot as well, the day before. The large Marine had wisely ordered his diminutive servant to fall back out of the forest, regroup with the rest of his warband, and enter these woods in force. It was to that end they now strove, picking their way carefully back through the forest, heading back the way they came.

Though the Chaos Marine's senses were sharp, and they had detected much of the booby traps Yanai had spent the night erecting, his companion was badly sleep-deprived. Adrenaline alone kept him awake, but as the morning grew warmer, the rain stopped, and the need for sleep became more and more apparent. By midday, the man had started to hallucinate, which was when Yanai secreted himself into a deadfall ahead of them, clutching his two knives, and the pistol he had taken from the hanged soldier.

The Chaos Marine actually walked directly over the deadfall, the lattice of fallen logs bending severely under his massive weight. But he plodded on. The soldier behind him had nearly cleared the deadfall as well when Yanai whispered to him.

"The Dark Gods have forsaken you." He said quietly in Low Gothic.

The soldier stopped. He looked around, unable in his groggy state to discern where the voice had come from. He looked down into the deadfall, right where Yanai had hid himself.

But Yanai was not there. The soldier saw no one.

"Despair now, for your end is at hand." Yanai whispered.

The soldier glanced around frantically. He blinked away sleepiness as his mind became clouded with confusion and fear. The pistol in his hand shook as he pointed it at various objects. Ferns, rocks, trees, gaps in the canopy through which blue sky peered. All were threatened, and yet none were the source of the sound.

The Chaos Marine was still walking, unaware his servant had stopped.

"Over here."

The human soldier wheeled. His eyes wide with growing panic. There was no one there.

"No, over here."

He turned around, reeling backwards from a perceived threat, but once again there was no one there. The Marine was almost out of sight. The human soldier drew a breath to call to his large companion.

A hand reached violently from behind to jerk his chin upwards, before a rusted, jagged dagger plunged into his neck. It ripped from one side to the other, opening his throat in a ragged, red, yawning grimace. He coughed, he gagged, blood splattering from his lips and the ruin of his neck. He was shoved forward roughly, falling onto his face with a final yelp of pain and fear.

Yanai stood over him, his hands soaked in blood, the rusted knife dripping in his fist.

But a roar of fury and a howl of gunfire interrupted his gloating. Cursed bolter fire streamed in toward him from where the Chaos Marine had turned, alerted by his companion's final yell. Yanai was off and running, bolter rounds smashing through the undergrowth, exploding agaist rocks and trees, the shockwaves from their bursts shaking dew from the leaves and buckling branches in half. Each bolt round was bigger than Yanai's fist, and the deafening boom of their explosions chased him as he ran.

Yanai permitted himself a glance behind, and saw the warrior give chase. Fear and dread flooded his body as he saw how fast the soldier moved. His people were agile as quicksilver, and the wild host of his craftworld even more so, but Yanai had never seen anything so bulky and heavy move with such unnatural speed. Bolter rounds snapped by his head, leaving burning purple and red trails in the mist-laden air. Were it not for Yanai's rapid, superhuman ducking and dodging, each one of those rounds would have crashed through his skull, so accurate was the fire from the ultimate warrior behind him.

Yanai juked and wove through the trees, ducking into gulleys, climbing up trees and leaping across gaps in the branches to another. Curses and bolter fire followed him. But Yanai was not simply running away. He circled around the marine, dodging through the branches, moving higher and lower as well as side to side. The bolter clicked empty, and the marine hurriedly reloaded it. As he did, Yanai stopped instantly, aiming his pistol and firing. The tiny solid slugs pinged off the Marine's armor, harmless as if Yanai had been hurling overripe fruit at him. But they did exactly what the Eldar hoped they would – for by the time his weapon was reloaded, the Marine was utterly furious.

Yanai led him on, ducking through the trees, leading the Marine on a chase, dodging bolter fire which became less and less accurate as the mon-keigh lost control of his anger. Yanai was challenged, cursed, called a coward. He was threatened to be eviscerated, sacrificed, fed personally to Slaanesh. Nothing swayed the Eldar warrior. An icy calm had come over him. He was so close to the end. This warrior would kill him, but Yanai would toy with him and humiliate him before his soul was wrenched from his body.

The Marine finally threw down his bolter in rage, throwing the last empty magazine at a nearby tree where it embedded in the wood with a heavy thunk. He ripped a long chainsword from his belt, pressing the revving stud and causing it to roar to life. More challenges were issued, but these were answered with rocks. Yanai tossed these against the Marine as he fled, each one pinging off his armor and adding the soldier's fury. Any time Yanai swept close, the huge warrior would swing with his chainsword, only to find it cutting cleanly through a tree trunk, showering sparks from a rock, or slicing the air where Yanai had once been.

All the while, the Eldar used his pathetically weak weapons to cut at the marine. He dodged and rolled, he dashed backwards, he lunged forwards. When the Marine grew close to catching him, Yanai would dart off into the brush, snapping shots from his pistol from the shelter of the brush. When this ran dry, he discarded it and threw more rocks, before darting forward to cut and harry again. The marine was far stronger than him, and very fast – but not fast enough.

For nearly an hour the two dueled in a running fit-and-start battle, Yanai leading the marine where he wished him to go, always allowing his foe to come tantalizingly close to defeating him before dodging away once more. The marine's armor was soon latticed with tiny, superficial cuts and scrapes from Yanai's wraithbone dagger. Not enough to damage, but enough to encourage the Marine to fight onward.

Until at once, the swirling melee stopped. The two suddenly froze, facing one another, and the Marine felt empty space under his heels. He teetered upon the edge of a precipice. His arms pinwheeled as he staggered, bending his knees to try to regain his balance. He dropped his chainsword, which whined plaintively as it fell, until it was shattered on the rocks far below. He turned his scarred, ornate helm toward Yanai. The Eldar regarded him impassively, holding a rock.

Winding up, he threw it directly into the Marine's face. One of his eye-slits, badly damaged already, shattered as the Marine lost all balance. With a scream of anger and fear, the huge warrior toppled over the edge.

But as he fell, he lunged out and grabbed Yanai around the ankle. With a yelp of surprise and fear, the Eldar warrior was pulled over the edge. Yanai grabbed wildly, a hand gripping a root protruding from the cliff edge at the past possible second. He cried out in pain as his wrist bore the full, twisting force of his fall. It was definitely broken, but he held on as best he could.

Below him, the Chaos Marine had plunged his dagger into the soft soil of the cliff face, breaking his fall. He looked up at the Eldar warrior, glowering through the shattered eyeplate, through which Yanai could see a single, malevolent black eye. He reached up and took hold of a rock outcrop, and pulled himself upwards. Taking hold, he plunged the dagger into the cliff face again, and pulled himself up more. He never took his eye off Yanai, the intent to kill him could not be written more plainly upon his face.

Yanai struggled to climb upwards, but he had only one working hand. He whimpered weakly as he attempted to pull himself over the lip of the cliff, away from the Chaos Marine. But a heavy, gauntleted hand clamped down over his leg, squeezing so brutally Yanai cried out in pain as his delicate armor shattered, his leg bruising, the bone cracking under stress. He was pulled, painfully, inexorably, back over the lip of the cliff.

As he dangled there, looking down at the Marine who would surely be his death, his cylindrical amulet bobbed into view, still hung around his neck.

In a flash, Yanai tore it from his neck, and stabbed it down through the open eye-plate of the Chaos Marine. He bellowed, releasing Yanai's leg and clutching his face. The Eldar warrior kicked down with all his might against the Marine's faceplate with his good leg. The force of the blow was just enough to dislodge the marine's knife from the cliff face. The warrior had lost his only purchase, and he fell with a scream of rage.

It seemed to take full seconds for him to hit the ground, and when he did, his screams were suddenly cut short.  
Yanai pulled himself over the cliff, and fell to the ground, sitting heavily upon the moist soil with his wounded leg extended outward and his broken hand sitting limply in his lap. He clutched his face in his good hand, gasping for breath amid huge sobs of relief and emotion. He allowed himself a few minutes of this indulgence, before steeling himself for his last tasks.

Far below the cliff, the Marine's body was broken. He lay on his back amid the shards of rock, his power armor shattered in a dozen places, blood seeping from where his torn and ruined flesh had been exposed to the air. Any other creature would have been rent to a bloody puddle by such a fall. But this superhuman warrior was even still _alive_.

Yanai approached him, using a long branch as a crutch, his leg and wrist splinted and wrapped with vines and branches from the forest. He bent over the Chaos warrior, and used his knife to sever the clasps and machine tendons holding his helmet in place. He lifted it clear. The mon-keigh's face was a network of ritual scars, arranged into the Chaotic pattern of the eight-pointed star. His eyes burned ferocious and green, even as blood coughed from his mouth. His trembling lips could no longer form words, but he curled them into a defiant snarl as he looked up into the face of his murderer. Yanai gazed down at him for a long time, wind softly tugging at his alabaster hair, before pulling his amulet out of the Marine's eye socket, and plunging his wraithbone dagger deep in its place. The great warrior shuddered violently, and then was still.

Yanai left the dagger where it was. He would no longer need it.

It was days before he found a suitable spot. A narrow crevasse cut through the forested landscape, a tiny stream trickled through the ravine, choked with trees and hidden from all viewers.

Yes, here is a good place.

Yanai lay his broken body at the base of the largest, oldest tree he could find in this sheltered ravine. In his hand, he held the delicate petals of a pale flower blossom. One so toxic it would stop his heart in moments once eaten. He could not stop Chaos from taking this world. Not alone. He had sidestepped many patrols since he had killed the Marine, but he knew it was only a matter of time before he was killed, or worse, captured. No, he would die on his own terms, in his own way. His body, with the spirit stone he so cherished, would hopefully never be found, lost in this ravine, he could exist as a twilight spectre within his spirit stone for all eternity. Maybe one day, some enterprising Ranger would find him, and let him commune with the infinity circuit of his ancestors once again.

Yanai looked up at the sky. Millions of beautiful stars would bear witness to his peaceful, quiet death. In his last moment, he was happy.


End file.
